Columnists Barry Horn, Kevin Sherrington and Rangers insider Evan Grant are back with another Rangers edition of SportsDay's "Ballzy" podcast! In this episode, the guys discuss Japanese free agent Shohei Ohtani and where Texas stands in the sweepstakes for baseball's biggest prize this offseason.

In pursuit of Ohtani

Barry Horn: "Who's the most important Ranger in the process now? Member of the front office. Is it Jon Daniels?"

Evan Grant: "That's a good question. I would think, at this point and time . . . look, the Rangers have made all their front office inroads with him and there's no negotiation to be done here. I think what it may come down to is, if the Rangers get a face-to-face meeting with him -- which I believe they are -- and I don't know exactly what their contingent will be in LA, but I think one thing that's gonna be really significant is the impression that Jeff Banister makes on him, just as I think it'll be important what kind of impression Dave Roberts makes on him, if the Dodgers sit down with him, because that's who he's gonna have to play for. He's gonna have to play for Jeff Banister and he's gonna have to work with Doug Brocail and Brocail had a very close relationship with Yu Darvish. I think Banister is going to have to find a way to connect with him."

Horn: "That's a good thing for the Rangers because Banister is a people person, no?"

Here's how the Rangers might be able to separate themselves from other contenders for Shohei Ohtani

Grant: "Jeff has been a great face for the organization. I think that he's also got that- I think it works really well in Texas because he's the son of a Texas high school football coach, he's got that kind of big, tall Texan mentality and persona. I don't know how that's gonna play with a Japanese guy, you know, who's not used to that."

Kevin Sherrington: "How did it work with Darvish?"

Grant: "I think with Darvish it was . . . look, the first year that Banister was here, Darvish got hurt in his first spring training game, and then he spent a year and half getting healthy. He was basically healthy for half of 2016 and for the first half of 2017 before he was traded, and spent much of that 2017 time under kind of speculation about trades, so I don't know that he and Banister ever had what amounted to the same kind of relationship that this guy would have. I think that Darvish respected and had admiration for everybody, but I will say this: When there was a lot of criticism lobbed at the Rangers' personnel based on comments he made during the playoffs, Darvish sought me out and wanted to clear it up that there was no issue with Doug Brocail or Brad Holman, and it was all based on pitching coaches, but there was never anything brought up about, 'Oh, I adore Jeff Banister' or 'I dislike Jeff Banister.'"

Sherrington: "We have to make clear, too, that's the case with most athletes. Most athletes' interaction is with their assistant coach or their position coach, not with the head coach or the manager."